Admission

Back to the Future: Freshman Admissions at the University of California, 1994 to the Present and Beyond, by Saul Geiser

Saul Geiser
2014

The past five years have seen unprecedented changes in freshman admissions at the University of California, reflecting steep cuts in state funding that UC sustained during that period as well as changes in UC’s definition of who is eligible to enter the university. The number of California applicants who were not admitted to the UC system more than doubled between 2010 and 2012, although part of that increase also reflected a change in admissions policies and procedures. The number of “no shows” – applicants who were admitted but did not attend – increased...

The Effect of Selective Public Research University Enrollment: Evidence from California, by Zachary Bleemer

Zachary Bleemer
2018
What are the benefits and costs of attending a selective public research university instead of a less-selective university or college? This study examines the 2001-2011 Eligibility in the Local Context (ELC) program, which guaranteed University of California admission to students in the top four percent of California high school classes. Employing a regression discontinuity design, I estimate that ELC pulled 8 percent of marginally-admitted students into four "Absorbing'' UC campuses from less-competitive public institutions in California. Those ELC compliers had lower SAT scores and family...

A Proposal to Eliminate the SAT in Berkeley Admissions, by Saul Geiser

Saul Geiser
2016

The SAT is used for two purposes at the University of California. First is eligibility: Determining whether applicants meet the minimum requirements for admission to the UC system. Second is admissions selection: At high-demand campuses such as Berkeley, with many more eligible applicants than places available, test scores are used to select from among them. UC policy delegates authority to the faculty at each campus to establish local admissions procedures that reflect “campus values and academic priorities.” Under the proposal outlined...

Winners and Losers? The Effect of Gaining and Losing Access to Selective Colleges on Education and Labor Market Outcomes, by Sandra Black, Jeffrey Denning, and Jesse Rothstein CSHE 2.20 (May 2020)

Sandra E. Black
Jeffrey T. Denning
Jesse Rothstein
2020

Selective college admissions are fundamentally a question of tradeoffs: Given capacity, admitting one student means rejecting another. Research to date has generally estimated average effects of college selectivity and has been unable to distinguish between the effects on students gaining access and on those losing access under alternative admissions policies. We use the introduction of the Top Ten Percent rule and administrative data from the State of Texas to estimate the effect of access to a selective college on student graduation and earnings outcomes. We estimate separate effects on...

The Role Of University Of California Academic Senate In Admissions Policy: Establishing Working Rules

John Aubrey Douglass
1997

This policy brief was prepared for the University of California Academic Senate and provides a general outline of the future role of the Senate's Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (BOARS) in setting universitywide undergraduate admissions policy. BOARS has the prerogative to act as the "lead agency" in this important area of educational policy, subject to the actions of the Regents, and recognizing the purview of the President and the Chancellors in coordinating the administrative process of selection and setting general enrollment limits, and the need to consult with...

Rethinking standardised testing to end discrimination

John Aubrey Douglass
2020

In a shot heard around the United States, on May 21, 2020, the University of California’s Board of Regents suspended the requirement and use of standardized tests, including the SAT and ACT, for freshman applicants. UC will be test optional for campus selection of freshman in fall 2021 and 2022, and “beginning with fall 2023 applicants and ending with fall 2024 applicants, campuses will not consider test scores for admissions selection at all, and will practice test-blind admissions selection.”

The Regents, along with some 1,200 other universities and colleges, had previously...

Top Percent Policies and the Return to Postsecondary Selectivity, by Zachary Bleemer, CSHE 1.21 (January 2021)

Zachary Bleemer
2021

I study the efficacy of test-based meritocracy in college admissions by evaluating the impact of a grade-based “top percent'' policy implemented by the University of California. Eligibility in the Local Context (ELC) provided large admission advantages to the top four percent of 2001-2011 graduates from each California high school. I construct a novel longitudinal dataset linking the ELC era’s 1.8 million UC applicants to educational and labor market outcomes. I first employ a regression discontinuity design to show that ELC led over 10 percent of barely-eligible applicants from low-...

Eligibility for Admission to the University of California After the SAT/ACT: Toward a Redefinition of Eligibility, by Saul Geiser, CSHE 2.22 (February 2022)

Saul Geiser
2022

Eligibility is a policy construct unique to California. UC and CSU are the only US universities that distinguish between eligibility for admission and admission itself and set separate requirements for each. The eligibility construct derives originally from California’s 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education, which famously mandated that UC admit students from the top 12.5% (and CSU from the top 33.3%) of California public high school graduates. Thus began a long and twisting saga of policy implementation that has become increasingly convoluted over time. UC’s decision to eliminate the SAT/...

DIVERSITY IN UNIVERSITY ADMISSIONS: Affirmative Action, Percent Plans, and Holistic Review by Zachary Bleemer CSHE 6.19 (July 2019)

Zachary Bleemer
2019

There is considerable interest in the impact of policy alternatives to race-based affirmative action (AA) on under-represented minority (URM) university enrollment. Widely-implemented alternatives include percent plans, which guarantee admission to top high school students, and holistic review, in which applications are evaluated on a comprehensive set of merits. This study estimates each policy's URM enrollment effect at the University of California (UC). Difference-in-difference estimates show that AA increased annual UC URM enrollment by more than 800 students (20%), and by more than 60...

The University of California Versus the SAT: A Brief History and Contemporary Critique, by John Aubrey Douglass, CSHE 8.20 (June 2020)

John Aubrey Douglass
2020

On May 21, 2020, the University of California (UC) Board of Regents unanimously approved the suspension of the standardized test requirement (ACT/SAT) for all California freshman applicants until fall 2024. UC plans to create a new test that better aligns with the content the University expects students to have mastered for college readiness. However, if a new test does not meet specified criteria in time for fall 2025 admission, UC will eliminate the standardized testing requirement for California students. The Board’s decision is the seeming culmination of a 19 year debate over the role...